


The most horrid disease in all the hells (we call it love)

by gaytriangle



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: (I’m SORRY), 8.04, Angst, Canon Compliant, F/M, For Once!, Jaime-centric, Season 8
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-07
Updated: 2019-05-07
Packaged: 2020-02-27 22:26:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,003
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18748336
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gaytriangle/pseuds/gaytriangle
Summary: Someone had to look at 8.04 and pull a reason for Jaime to destroy his character development. Can you spell t-r-a-u-m-a?





	The most horrid disease in all the hells (we call it love)

Ser Jaime Lannister knew he would leave behind a conflicting legacy by the age of fifteen. 

At fifteen, he had felt truly proud of himself for the first time. He had done exactly what Cersei wished! He could be together with his sister, and train under Ser Arthur Dayne, the fabled Sword of the Morning. Nothing could be better! This impression, and the ear to ear grin that matched it, lasted until that very first night in the Red Keep. 

Rhaella Targaryen screamed. From sunset to sunrise, night after night, barely human by the end of it yet always ready to begin again the following evening. The first night, Jaime had began to unsheathe his sword, stalk towards the entrance of the room, certain that there was an assassin sent to kill the queen inside there at that very moment. How proud would Cersei be, he wondered, when she knew he had foiled an assassination attempt on his very first night in the Kingsguard?

Arthur Dayne had stopped him. Had laid one white gloved hand on his arm. Had stared at him, with haunted purple eyes and a downturn to his stoic mouth. Jaime froze. He heard his heartbeat pounding like a war drum, even Rhaella fading as the realisation crashed through him. He tasted blood as he bit his cheek to stop the instinctive spring of tears to his eyes. Before Ser Arthur even opened his mouth, Jaime was certain that his life and his legacy were ruined. 

And then he killed his king. 

Jaime was a master of false face, of seeming unshaken. Rhaella had taught him that. So he knew that he should have been horrified, have been on his knees, white as milk, possibly even shaking. He wasn’t. He was smirking, he knew that distantly, but he couldn’t even here what Stark was saying. All he could hear was the order to burn them all, was Rhaella screaming, was his minds best approximation of what it must have sounded like when poor, sweet Rhaenys was stabbed over and over until she had no more blood to bleed. 

It was a very good approximation. 

Jaime sat in the remains of his legacy, of his dreams of love and of justice, and smirked. He didn’t care, after that. Cersei was his twin, married to some fucker with the misfortune of being his king, and he’d take what was always meant to be his. He watched Robert with a decent amount of hatred, but also a rather large amount of relief. A Baratheon castle would hold no Rhaella screaming. 

He was wrong about that too. 

Time passed. Cersei passed in and out of his bed, and of the birthing bed, and maybe Jaime didn’t believe in Gods, but they had to be some sort of a punishment. On him or the kingdom? Jaime didn’t know. King Joffrey was a heathen, godless and loveless and remorseless, and if Jaime was half a man he would have taken his son over his knee and beat the demon out of him. But Jaime had less bravery than Tyrion had height, so he did nothing. 

Princess Myrcella was kind and caring, a golden cub that bloomed in the desert that should have strangled her, and called it mercy, and been right. It was more mercy than her father had given the last Princess of Dorne. Jaime spent his time trying to parent her, trying to rescue her, and he condemned her to a fate _worse_ than if he had done nothing. 

Tommen was the best of them, the best of the whole damned and twisted family, so it made a twisted sort of sense that he would leave it as soon as he could. He wasn’t made to be King. He was made to be a prince, to live happy and pampered with the wife he adored. It was Jaime’s crimes that robbed him of that destiny. 

Children were legacy, someone had said, once. The crazed, the one killed for his crimes, and the one who’d rather die than live a life where Cersei was free to do as she pleased. That was Jaime Lannister’s legacy. 

Then there was Brienne. She looked at him just the same as everyone else, at the start. Jaime couldn’t pinpoint when that changed. When he saved her from rapers? That was hardly the mark of a good man, no, that was the bare minimum, any half decent knight would have tried to do that. Harrenhal? But he left her there, and going back didn’t mean much when you left of your own volition. When he handed her Oathkeeper? The look in those beautiful blue eyes had been something then, but he would have called it begrudging respect more than anything else. He didn’t deserve anything else. Not from her. 

He was surprised, honestly, that she had stood up for him rather than killing him herself. That was what he deserved. And gods above, he took her maidenhead. The Kingslayer, the Oathbreaker, the Sister-Fucker: he was far from a good man. From what she deserved. 

And yet. When he looked at her eyes, he saw the waters of Tarth. He saw a peaceful future, where they raised blonde children together who knew exactly where Jaime stood in their family tree, and never worried about crowns. He saw Goldenhand the Just, a life where Tyrion ruled from the Rock as he always should have and Jaime traded with Brienne on who stayed to rule the island and who went off to chase brigands and dispense the Queens justice. He saw a life belonging to a good man. 

But Jaime Lannister wasn’t a good man. Could never be a good man. Brienne sobbed as he mounted the horse, but Jaimes tears were as silent as they had been outside Rhaellas door all those years ago. He would never be happy with someone else while Cersei lived. Cersei would never be content unless they were both dead. 

If he survived, maybe he’d deserve Brienne.


End file.
